[0:00] Well, my thanks once again for your very warm welcome. Like many of you, I first met theology in a short of catechism, and I owe that document an immense personal debt.
[0:18] It's a document which uses the English language with very great skill and beauty. It contains many superb definitions of the fundamental doctrines of a Christian faith.
[0:36] And I find that in my preaching and thinking and academic work too, I come back to it time and again for analysis and elucidation.
[0:50] Indeed, I find that even dealing with the most recent forms of error, that I'm led back often to those old formulations.
[1:06] That doesn't mean that the catechism as a human document is in all respects perfect. And as I turn tonight to reflect on this topic of holiness or sanctification, I feel bound to slightly modifullary approach of the catechism on this subject.
[1:34] What I mean is this, that when we were asked, what is sanctification, what is sanctification, what is sanctification, what is sanctification, we were almost reminded that it was a work, whereas justification was an act.
[1:52] Now, that difference in terminology was deliberate, and from the divine's point of view, it was very important.
[2:04] It was very important. It was very important. Justification was instantaneous. It was complete in the very moment of inception, whereas sanctification was an ongoing, continuous, and progressive thing.
[2:25] There is no doubt that distinction has some merit. The problem with it is that it doesn't reflect exactly the way this word is used in the New Testament itself.
[2:45] Because in the New Testament, the stress falls of sanctification, not so much as a process, but a work, but on the moment of transformation, that lies at the commencement of our own Christian lives.
[3:12] This point was drawn to the Attitude of theologians by the name Professor John Murray, some years ago, in a very important article called, Definitous Thumbivication.
[3:29] And Professor Murray, in his introduction of the relevant biblical texts, Indicated very, very clearly to us that most of those refer not to ongoing transformation, but to definitive and instantaneous transformation.
[3:53] That doesn't mean that the old approach is erroneous. It means that the old approach is inadequate.
[4:06] It means that in future we must always honourise sanctification from the two points of view. On the one hand definitive sanctification, and on the other hand progressive sanctification.
[4:25] That means that I want tonight to focus on two facts. First of all that all Christians are holy, and then that all Christians are becoming holy.
[4:44] Without both of those emphasis, our doctrine is inadequate.
[4:55] I begin then with the emphasis that all Christians are whole. This great idea of definitive sanctification.
[5:07] Now as I said, this is simply a matter of faithfulness to the Bible's own use of this particular term. You find this, for example, in 1st Lutheran, and really opening words of this epistle, if you just turn to the first chapter of 1st Lutheran, you'll see this.
[5:29] You'll see that in verse 2, the first chapter 2, the following the following. And then in verse 3, all these people are in the church. And then in verse 3, all these people are in the church.
[5:40] And to the church of God, the Jays at Corinth, land that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints.
[5:52] The point here surely is this, but they are sanctified in Christ Jesus. It is a partillion idea, a point at which they come to be in Christ Jesus and at that point they are sanctified. And as the result of that they are already saints.
[6:21] They are called saints. And so in the very moment of our union with Christ these things happen, we are sanctified and we come to be saints. You find this also in the sixth chapter of the same epistle and in verse 11. You find that here Paul is contrasting the present state of these believers with her former state. They were thieves and covetous and drunkards and revilers and so on. He says such were some of you. But you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. Now more precisely Paul says that you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.
[7:24] And just to guide us here the exact same language is used of sanctification as is used of washing and of justification.
[7:38] Now we know that justification is an infinitive and fantilious once for all experience of the commencement of the Christian lives.
[7:52] And by the same logic sanctification has exactly these characteristics. They were sanctified in the same way as they were justified at the same time and by the same process.
[8:12] In other words here the Apostles use sanctification as is used of sanctification as co-ordinates.
[8:24] Now seems to be adopted a very great moment, this fact, that at the foundation of the Christian lives there lies this magnificent experience, definitive sanctification.
[8:40] This once for all change in our whole position. And with regard to this change I just want to make three points quickly.
[8:55] First of all definitive sanctification involves a change of state, a change of relationship. It puts us in a whole new relationship to God and to the world. If we are to examine the use of the word holy, particularly in the Old Testament, we find that very often it doesn't refer to any kind of moral state.
[9:26] First of all it refers often to a relationship. I can put this best if I express it concretely. For example there were holy cities.
[9:38] And there were holy vessels. And there were holy vessels. And there were holy buildings. And when the Old Testament spoke of Jerusalem being holy for example or the nation being holy, it didn't mean that they were good or morally pure.
[9:58] It meant that they stood in a very special relationship to God. They were set apart from a common to a holy use. They were consecrated. They were separated to God.
[10:16] And that something holy. Something holy was literally cut off. In fact the idea wasn't very far from the idea of something being cursed.
[10:28] Something cursed. Something cursed was devoted to God for destruction. Something holy was devoted to God for his use and for his enjoyment. And that's one of the great primary ideas in definitive sanctification.
[10:48] That we Christians that we Christians are set apart from a common to a holy use. We are no longer common or profane. We belong in a very special sense to God.
[11:02] And that's in turn rooted in the whole idea of redemption. Because in redemption we have been bought. And remember that Paul argues, you are not your own, you are bought with a price.
[11:18] Therefore glorified God in your body. Therefore glorified God in your body and in your spirits which are God's. In other words he says, you don't belong to yourselves. Your bodies don't belong to yourselves. Your spirits don't belong to yourselves.
[11:33] Therefore with your cells, your bodies, your spirits, you must glorify God. Because therefore the use of God. Everything you have. Everything you have. Everything you have. Everything you are. Has been set apart from a common to a holy use.
[11:49] We are separated unto the gospel of God. We are the church of God. The ecclesia. We are called out. The high upward separationist calling of Christ Jesus.
[12:03] In other words, God has infected this great cleavage. He has called us out. He has set us apart. We are his own peculiar people. We are God's very special possession. We don't belong to ourselves.
[12:22] We belong to ourselves. We belong to God. We belong to God. This sanctification means a whole new relationship with God.
[12:42] And then secondly, it also means a transformation. Not only is there a whole new relationship, but there is a transformation. What we are is radically altered.
[12:58] Now, I can express this in technical terms and say that our whole ontology, our whole being is changed. Our nature of hearts undergo radical transformation.
[13:14] It is put in the new testament. It is put in the new testament most dramatically in these terms. If a man is in Christ, then he is a new creature. If it is in Christ, then there is a new creation. If we are in Christ, then the old man is crucified. The old man is dead. The old man is in the way. And we are new creatures in Christ Jesus.
[13:41] Of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course. That flesh is destroyed. That's why there is no undone sin. It doesn't mean that we don't tell any serious spiritual problems. But it does mean, you see, that we are new. We are not the people that we wear.
[14:02] Oh, by the people when it happens to the 我們 are evil inland beforeANE and we are new patient. We either fall in atheism oriform.
[14:13] We even fall into both areas of сейчас and we are now kind of fear. That there is a human population and not, we are facing ourleye myself, but to fulfill those fears and of course we'll fight against ourselves. But it's still a дост of us, we have this opportunity for us. We will enter all our trials.
[14:25] Because you see that notion is sometimes a very convenient and receptacle for blame what we ourselves do, what's wrong. And it has been perilously easy to say in the midst of our own youth and our own Christian feelings, that is the old man, that is the old Adam. And this was one great reason why Professor Murray gave such emphasis to the notions both of definitive sanctification and of the destruction of the old man because he was, he said, by doing this we take away the receptacle, we take away this thing that we blame.
[15:15] As if we're saying it's not me it's the old man, it's the old nature, it's the old Adam. And the great thing is you see that if we approach the thing biblically that old Adam no longer exists, that old nature is no longer there, that man that we used to be can't be blamed for anything we do.
[15:41] Now when we sin we are to face the terrible reality that it is we ourselves, it's the new man who sins. It is the regenerative self. It is this man in Christ, this man filled with the Spirit.
[15:57] And that's why the doctrine is so important. It has such great moral leverage. There is such great moral force in it. Because God has done this mighty thing. God has destroyed the man that we used to be.
[16:15] And God has turned us into new creatures. Now of course this new man has continuities with the old man. I have the same temperament. I have the same physical body. I have the same IQ. I may have the same bipolar depression.
[16:37] I may have the same as the old improspectiveness or the old extrovertness about me. In that sense my temperament does not change overnight.
[16:48] And yet at the same time there is so much that is new. Our problem has been in reform thought. That we have been so busy reacting to perfectionism.
[17:02] That we have not done justice to the greatness of the change effected in definitive sanctification. Because this new person has a whole range of new powers. Things he can now do which he could never do before.
[17:21] And we have been downplaying things. We have been minimizing that importance. For example, this new person can believe. This new person can repent. This new person can love God. This new person can love the people of God. This new person can love sin.
[17:40] Lord sin can struggle against sin. This new person can struggle against sin. This new person sees beauty in Christ. This new person hangers and thirsts for the Living God. This new person has patience under the hand of God which he did not have before.
[17:55] before. This new person has a concern for the souls of the lost that he or she didn't have before. You see there is no way that that new range of abilities was possible to the old man. They are possible only to the person who is new and with yourselves no service at all by minimizing the significance of these new faults and all these abilities. We are you, you are you. You are not what you used to be.
[18:29] You can't go back and blame that old man because he's dead and you can't blame a dead man. When you sin it's the you you that sins. There's terrible teaching of false unity. That we sin in union with Christ. We sin as those endowed by the Spirit of God. And it also means you see that when we are faced with the startling demands of the Christian ethic. When we are faced with for example the Sermon on the Mount. When we are told to turn the other cheek and go on the extra line. When we are faced with the ethic of Philippians 2. Think the way Jesus stopped. That we cannot say to ourselves, ah but that's impossible for me. That's utterly unrealistic because I'm human and I could be old man. You see you cannot say that because if we are in Christ there is a new creation. And you see it's a very important point in theology and especially in the doctrine of salvation. If I can put it grammatically that God's indicatives always go before God's imperatives. You see the person to whom God addresses that Sermon on the Mount are people who are called saints. They are people whom God has transformed. And when God says to you think the way Jesus thinks or thinks or thought. You can't say to God, ah but I'm a natural man, I'm an old man, I'm the old man.
[20:14] Because we are new. You see we have the capacity. We have the resources. We have the abilities in ourselves actually to cope with the law of God. You can't turn to God and say Lord you haven't given me the resources. Because God says you have undergone by grace definitive sanctification. And so this involves as I said first of all a change in our whole relationship to God. It involves secondly a transformation of our nation. And the third point I make a difference is that it is all a matter of dealing with Christ. That is the fundamental thing about a Christian.
[21:05] He is united to Christ. He is in Christ. Christ is in Him. And the Christ to whom we are united is the the risen Lord and the risen Savior. And therefore we are united to the power of the resurrection as where we stand in the risen and exalted Christ. We are king to Him. We are, if it's not too cheap, we are wired into Jesus.
[21:40] We are branches of this body. We are members of this body. He is the nerve center. He is the source of our spiritual energy. And all the energy in Him is available to us. We are rooted and built up in Him.
[21:59] I live yet, not I, that Christ lives and lives. That you may be strengthened with all might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your heart's life. I can do all things in the one's way.
[22:20] You see, today we hear so much about self-image. We know for example that in the areas of sporting achievement, in the areas of management, of production targets, that so much depends on our self-image. And certainly, if we are inhibited by low self-esteem, then that's going to seriously limit our achievement in any sphere of life.
[22:50] There is no doubt at all, but that in professional sport, in soccer, in cricket, in batsmanship, even in bowling, so much depends on confidence.
[23:04] Let me even say what may sound hard to say. But even preaching the gospel to some extent is a question of confidence.
[23:16] The belief that one has something worth saying, and that by God's grace one can say it. And even for the same time, one can say it. Yet, if I begin to doubt that what I'm saying is worth saying.
[23:35] If I begin to doubt that God will have to be saved, then I will tied up in knots and can't do it. And that is equally true in the whole area of the Christian life.
[23:50] Not so many of us certainly defeated before we start, because we have this low self-esteem. Now it isn't a matter of natural legatism. It's a matter of taking God at his word, you see.
[24:06] You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. And you may say, who me Lord? We us? You mean us? Yes, I mean you. You are you in Christ Jesus.
[24:19] And if I tell you to climb that mountain, if I tell you to carry this, Lord, Lord, if I tell you to bear this temptation, to bear this pain, then you can do it. If I lay upon you the Sermon on the Mount with its rigorous effort, if I demand of you the mind of Christ Jesus, then don't you start whimpering and whinging. You believe that in Christ you are you.
[24:47] And you believe that you can do it. And that in him you can climb the mountain. And in him you can overcome. We are more than conquerors through him that love us.
[25:00] And even when Paul said that, he was doing it to make Christians modest. Was he doing it so that they would say, well, Paul was a great man.
[25:13] Paul was more than conqueror through him who loved them. He wasn't doing it for that purpose at all. He was doing it to make them feel that they could do it. That they could be more than conquerors through him who loved them.
[25:28] Because we come back, you see, to the fundamental reality. Not I, but Christ. It is not me, but Christ who lives in me. And I turn it this way.
[25:41] Are you saying to me that there is something that the Christ in me cannot do? Are you saying that there is something that God categorically demands that I do in Christ?
[25:56] Are you saying that I cannot do it? It is no murder of human pride. It is pride in our Savior. It is confidence that in him there is nothing that we cannot do.
[26:13] Well, so much in the first phase for this whole notion of what I've called definitive sanctification, that holiness that lies at the commencement of our Christian lives, a change of relationship with God, a transformation of a nature, both of them based on our union with the Lord Jesus Christ.
[26:37] The second emphasis I name is that Christians, all Christians are becoming holy. And that is not only this instantaneous definitive change, but there is also progressive transformation as by God's grace we move towards conformity to the image of his own Son.
[27:02] Then again, this progressive holiness, it involves two or three separate elements. It involves first and foremost the element of multiplication. We are to modify sin.
[27:20] In the call that John Owen has a great treatise on this subject, the modification of sin, which I commend to you. Now, in this statement, the article in Romans 6, which we read just a few moments ago.
[27:37] If we live according to the flesh, we shall die. Terrible, terrible teaching. It is so unqualified, it's so categorical.
[27:49] If we live according to the flesh. You can't get up and shelter under, well I'm just a carnal Christian. If you live a carnal life, then you die.
[28:03] If you live according to the flesh, then you live the reward of death itself. But if we, through the spirit, multiply the deeds of the body, then we shall live.
[28:18] Now, it's extremely interesting language, if only because of the violence of post-hermenology. Because what is the literalism is this.
[28:32] If you murder sin. If you club it and batter it to death. If your response to sin is to make you loath and detest it, so that you wage war upon it, you have this tremendous antagonism to sin.
[28:57] Your attitude to sin is murderous. How do you feel in relation to sin? I feel murderous. I want to strangle it.
[29:11] I want to take every last ounce of life and energy out of it. I want to kill it, kill its own death. That's what it is. Amar is an essential element in progressus and evitation.
[29:26] But we murder sin. Now you see, it isn't a reference simply to sin in general. It's very easy to live with sin in general.
[29:40] It's very easy to still live with sin in the absolute, the most important thing we call sin. The Bible asks us to be interested not simply in sin but in sins.
[29:53] In the deeds of the body. In the works of the flesh. Are these things itemized, individualized, the things that you've got to murder.
[30:19] that you've got to cease excusing. You've got to cease explaining to yourself and you've got to club them to death. And you've got to show them no mercy.
[30:33] Because the terrible teaching is if you don't kill them they'll kill you. That's a terrible teaching. That's what Paul said. If you don't kill them they'll kill you.
[30:45] If you don't mortify, murder them, then you will die. That's what Paul said. If you don't immobilize yourself against these enemies.
[30:58] As a result it's going to be fatal. And so you repeat that. Mortify the sins in your members, particularized.
[31:09] You attack them. And you do it. So it says murder them. Murder them individually. And it says you do it.
[31:21] It's something you do. You see it's not something that happens by breathing the air. Or the regularly attending church.
[31:32] Or by being interested in comfort. Or by having regular seasons of prayer. It does not happen simply unconsciously and automatically.
[31:47] It is something that you do deliberately. And you do consciously. You do it to individual sins. You do it. And of course we do it as those who are led by the Spirit of God.
[32:03] That's what we do. That's the sign. That's where the Spirit leads us. This Spirit leads this great dead squad. That's what it does. The Spirit's leading in that great context.
[32:17] And Romans is not concerned at all. With inner voices telling you what to do. What career to choose. What man or woman to marry.
[32:28] What place to reside in. That is not the Spirit's leading at all. The Spirit's leading in Romans seeks is that he leads this dead squad. That's what's about.
[32:39] It's business searching for sin and clubbing sin to death. And it is a terrible devotion on my part if I think that I am led by the Spirit while I'm cobalting with sin.
[32:54] We cannot do it with sin. We cannot do it with sin. We cannot do it with God. If we are led by the Spirit then we're led by the Spirit with hatred and murder in our hearts against sin.
[33:07] Where that wall with sin. That's where the Lord wants us to be. That's what's being led by the Spirit. Now of course. Those include not only the grosser and the more carter and the more obvious sins.
[33:22] But those other inward sins of envy and pride and demolish and hypocrisy. The sense of superiority to other Christians.
[33:35] The lack of compassion towards the lost in the way. The lack of meanness. Let's point this to this. That the Word of God leads every single one of us to areas where we ourselves feel personally uncomfortable.
[33:50] You see I can go through a great range and list of sins tonight. And you feel very comfortable with it. The caution or duty of idiots as you see.
[34:04] And it needs the Spirit of God to take you into that area of self-analysis and self-knowledge. For it hurts. For you there for you to prove about yourself.
[34:16] And if we don't live without interfaith. If we don't live without pride sometimes in life. Then it means that God's Spirit is not dealing with us at all.
[34:30] And then he was the same tonight. Thanking God that we are not a young people. That we're not being led by the Spirit. Because the Spirit leads us into those areas of our own existence.
[34:44] Where we know our own gift and our own failure. And I do very fairly believe that every one of us must ask God. Lord show me myself.
[34:55] Lord give me new view of me. Just as I want God's view of Jesus. There is enlightenment in the knowledge of Christ.
[35:09] So I need God's view of me. In conviction of sin. And I need to bring the two together. And in the moment that God shows me.
[35:20] Those areas of my life. Which are hateful to him. There I've got to act as execution. And I've got to club this thing to death.
[35:34] So holiness is impossible without modification. The second element here is renewal. And I can back again to the Caryism which tells us.
[35:47] That in sanctification. We are renewed in the whole man. According to the image of God. Now this renewal you see.
[35:59] It is a progressive and ongoing thing. It is referred to very very often in the New Testament. It is virtually always as progressive. Rather than as definitive.
[36:11] Be transformed by the reunion of your mind. And so on. We are to be renewed. And this renewal I say again. It is a renewal of the whole man.
[36:22] It is total. Every single aspect of our human personality. Of new personality. You see again. The devil is absolutely marvelous.
[36:32] And getting your life cleaned up. 90%. And telling you. You are doing great. And then yes.
[36:42] Your conscience says. Yes. What about the 10%? Well he says. Well that's not much. In comparison to 90%. So you want the whole man you see.
[36:54] You are totally depraved. Before conversion. Totally sanctified. After conversion. They are sanctified in every area of human devil.
[37:05] You see there are people. And they are sanctified. They are renewed in the area of intellect. Look for different beliefs. They are sanctified maybe in the area of desire, ambition, aspiration.
[37:21] But you know very often they are not renewed in the area of emotions. They still have what I would regard as carnal depression.
[37:35] They have carnal anxieties. They have carnal discontent. They have a carnal discontent. You see. We've got to have it total. Every area of the life.
[37:48] And then having said that. You just want to place a very special emphasis on renewal of the mind. Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
[37:59] You see it isn't simply a matter of what you think. It's a matter of how you think.
[38:12] I don't know if you read any of you how you blame ours, the Christian mind. You see the point may be there is this. But Christians often attack general problems with exactly the same methodology as non-Christians.
[38:34] Their judgments on political problems. Their judgments on professional problems. Their reactions to domestic problems. The way we approach.
[38:47] You know you serve sometimes in your own professions. But there are men of exceptional abilities. And I'm told it's an education to watch them work.
[39:02] It's not simply that they perform the technology, the exercise better than others. But their whole approach is different.
[39:14] You see the whole idea of life and of people. They come out from a different angle. If we are Christians you see confronted with a problem.
[39:25] Do we approach it differently? In other words, do we approach it from the bible's point of view? Do we ask what would Jesus do? How would Jesus see this particular problem?
[39:39] How would Jesus react if he saw this man in the gutter? How would Jesus react to this act of provocation?
[39:52] Are we simply coming at problems with their own natural reactions, their own instinctive reactions? Or do we tackle problems from a biblical and Christ-derived point of view?
[40:09] In other words, not simply what you think, but the way that you think. Where you start and the way you move into a problem is different because your mind is different.
[40:22] You see, where that began was with Jesus himself. When he told the disciples that the Son of Man must be crucified, they were horrified.
[40:38] And he said to them, to use the language of the authorised version, Peter said, your problem is this. You are thinking about me and my cross in a human way.
[40:55] To the human mind, this whole notion of Christ being crucified is absurd. And we've got to learn to look at everything from God's standpoint.
[41:06] To look at everything from a biblical standpoint. To ask God's questions, to ask Christ's questions, to ask the Bible's questions of every paradox and every dilemma in our own lives.
[41:22] Not simply what you think, but the way that you think. So there is renewal, progressive renewal of the whole of our personality, especially of our minds.
[41:33] We have to be renewed according to the image of Christ. The image of him appeared as the image of Christ himself.
[41:46] You see, the renewal has a paradigm, it has a pattern, it has a template, it has a model. We have to be renewed according to the image of Jesus.
[41:59] And so much again depends, you see, in how we see this Christ. And for me the essential thing is Christ as a servant, as the one who made himself known.
[42:16] Holiness is Christ-likeness, Christ-likeness is service. Holiness is the mind of a servant. The mind that says, I have no rights, I have only obligations.
[42:33] The mind that is willing to be nothing for the sake of others. The terrible danger is that because I say these things people think that that's the way I am, or the way I think they are. Of course that's not the position I'm putting forward at all.
[42:48] I'm simply saying the baptism Bible is teaching. You see, we have the great many evil legacy. The Christ of the icons.
[43:00] The Christ of the tapestries. The great imperial, dominant, grand, terrifying fear. And I feel sometimes that to many of us a holy man is an august, unbending, judgmental person.
[43:22] I feel sometimes that to me. So I come back to this Christ. This Christ who never condones sin. This Christ who maintains his own absolute integrity.
[43:36] And yet is always at the disposal of others. And I feel that so much of my Christianity is only a pale reflection.
[43:52] A parody. A parody. A parody of the real thing. Because the real thing is the man who was willing to be crucified between two thieves and the garbage heap outside the city walls.
[44:07] And the pilgrimage that I am called to is not along the road lined with a claim of power or influence or ease or comfort.
[44:21] But it is the Via Dolorosa. Where nothing is easy. Where nothing is comfortable. Where in fact nothing, even that is religious, is allowed to be beautiful.
[44:36] But where we stand there with Christ the servant. Think the way Jesus thought. Have a mind shaped like that of Christ who made himself nothing.
[44:49] The holy man then is the man who mortifies sin. The holy man is the man who is being renewed so that he thinks the way Christ thought.
[45:02] Looks at his own rights and his own interests in every single context. The way that Christ thought of his rights and his interests.
[45:15] Mortification, renewal and growth. Progressive sanctification. Which means that we start from the position of spiritual infancy and childishness.
[45:32] But we don't remain there. But we grow into mature manhood. We grow up spiritually.
[45:45] I am not going to go through this in much detail. We grow in grace. In its biblical usage.
[45:57] To graciousness, pleasantness, beauty. The Christian you see gets lovelier and lovelier. Is that the way it is?
[46:12] It is not that the Christian becomes more and more austere in relation to others. More and more remote, more and more distant, more and more terrifying.
[46:24] More and more witch-doctor-like. But it becomes lovelier and lovelier. Gracious, pleasant, beautiful. Grow in grace.
[46:35] This Christian grows in knowledge. This Christian grows in the ability to resist temptation.
[46:49] This Christian, in the context of Ephesians 4, you see, he grows in the ability to fit into the body. To be part of the organism.
[47:01] A dreadfully difficult that is. So many of us are tempted to conclude that we can only have freedom and only grow and find spiritual space if we become individuals, individualists.
[47:21] Very powerful, powerful, powerful, powerful temptation. But growth means being compacted, coordinated into the body.
[47:33] Becoming more adapted, more adaptable, more useful to the body itself. Growth in the ability to fellowship. In the willingness to be available to others.
[47:48] And to be available to them in a meaningful way. Today, I put it to you. It is a very serious challenge. It may be today you are finding it more difficult than ever to fit into the church of God.
[48:04] I will confess that that is something I feel very, very powerful in. It is something that we have got to be very careful about. Because we are not meant to function except as members of the body of Christ.
[48:21] And we should not be growing away from the body, but growing into the body of believers. Well, let me rapidly make two or three comments in conclusion.
[48:34] Let me say first of all that in sanctification, a great deal of responsibility devolves upon ourselves.
[48:49] I am not at all blind to the fact that in the New Testament there is considerable emphasis on the fact that it is God the Father who sanctifies us. God the Son who washes and cleanses us by his Holy Spirit.
[49:04] And the Spirit himself who is the Spirit of holiness. And it is a magnificent thing, you know. But tonight the three Persians of the Godhead are busily employed around your life.
[49:19] Trying to sort it out. Mortifying sin, renewing it and causing it to grow. And yet at the same time there is great and constant stress on our own responsibility and our own involvement.
[49:37] We mortify the deeds of the body. As many as have this hope, John says, they purify themselves as he is pure.
[49:50] These are the ones, says John in the Revelation, who have come out of the great tribulation. And they have washed their robes.
[50:00] It's a marvellous, marvellous picture. They have washed their own robes. They've done it themselves. They have washed their own robes. I say it because you know today the Church of God is going off the rails of sanctification in a very peculiar and a very plausible way.
[50:19] As if sanctification were simply an experience you had, a deliverance you got, something God did to you under an aesthetic in a very painless way, something you get.
[50:30] You got holiness. There were indeed in the previous decades great holiness conventions and conferences and one went to them to get holiness, to get the second blessing.
[50:44] Well I'm not going far into this, but I remember a very pertinent word I taught Martin Lloyd-Jones in this area in his work on Romans 6, where he certainly faces up to this whole problem of instantaneous getting of sanctification.
[51:05] And he says this to us, that what we need, you see, is not a doctor but a sergeant major. Because very often in the New Testament the stress is stand up and do your exercises and practice your self-denial and get on with this business of sanctification.
[51:25] Because we say, Lord I'm a patient, I'm not well. I'm not in an ordinary Gaelic idiom, you see, I'm not loyal.
[51:36] I'm not having a very good time spiritually. I'm not well, Lord, I've got a temperature. And the thing is, you see, that we are to lift up those hands and use those knees and exercise those joints.
[51:51] We need the drill, we need the multiplication, we need the discipline. God doesn't allow us to sit in bed taking our own spiritual pulse and saying, I'm not very well spiritually.
[52:04] I'm just leaning at this. You see, he's saying to us, if you're not feeling well in God's name, what are you doing about it? Have you taken your food? Have you taken your medicine?
[52:17] Have you done your exercises? He said to God, no, I haven't. I haven't been feeling well enough to take food or medicine or do exercises. Well, how do you expect to feel if you don't eat and don't drink?
[52:29] Don't take vitamins, don't do medicines. Never move, never get exercise. Of course you feel poor, so long as you lie on that bed languishing in self-pity, you'll feel poorer and poorer by the minute.
[52:44] Until the sergeant major comes and gets up and says, mortify the needs of the body. Do something. Use those limbs. Exercise those spiritual muscles.
[52:55] Get on with washing your robes. Purify yourself as God is pure. You do it. That is a stress. And really, I remember, you see, you look at men like Robert McChair and these men, this great mystery.
[53:11] Why they were holy? They were holy because they wanted to be. They were holy because they worked at it. That's why we're not, why I'm not holy. We don't work. You see, just to put my head on the block even further, there's a very real danger that Catholicism has got this right far more effectively than we have.
[53:34] Because in this area they do actually have a history of spiritual culture and spiritual discipline and self-denial. Now, of course, it may be motivated by the wrong considerations.
[53:48] It may be a bit of stigma, it may be salvation by works. But you see, they have disciplines. A man, like Ignatius Loyola, that man who did terrible damage through his Jesuit movement.
[53:59] That man, you see, he went through rigorous spiritual exercises. He did something to be holy. We got so flabby. We don't do the exercises so we don't get the holiness.
[54:14] But let me end on what is a different note and what may seem in fact to be in the contradiction of this phenomenon is this. The inevitability for the child of God of holiness.
[54:26] It's inevitability. Now, how can I say that? Well, I say it because in a magnificent way, God himself has taken the responsibility of sanctifying us.
[54:40] And that goes right back to God's own decree. You go to Romans 8, God's mind made up.
[54:59] God's mind made up. They'll be Christ-like. They'll be holy. They'll be glorious. Conformity to the image of a son. That is what predestination is about.
[55:11] It is not about getting to heaven whether you're holy or not. It's about God being determined to make you holy, to make you Christ-like.
[55:23] Let me go back again, you see, to something almost equally fundamental to the whole doctrine of the atonement. Why did Christ die?
[55:35] Why did Christ give himself for you? Was it simply to secure for you the remission of sins? Christ knows his problems.
[55:47] To sanctify and cleanse you by the washing of water by the world and to present you to himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle.
[56:00] That's what the cross is about. God's mind is about the direct link between the atonement and sanctification. Now indeed that road leads through justification.
[56:14] But for too many of us the road stops of justification. You see, the whole glorious truth, the evangelical kernel of the doctrine of limited atonement is that the cross actually saves.
[56:32] The cross actually sanctifies. The cross secures for you the certainty of Christ-likeness. Christ died so that one day you'd be the most magnificent creature imaginable, conformed to the image of the Son of God.
[56:56] You see what a great thing it is to be caught up in the love of God. God's determination to save. God is committed to making you as lovely as Jesus.
[57:11] Well, I shall leave it there for the moment. Thank you. Thank you. Well, it's now open for a time of questions.
[57:27] Last week I mentioned that it would be good if we could perhaps repeat the questions from the platform here so that everybody hears the question, especially that the tape hears the questions.
[57:39] I tried to do it last time and it didn't work, so I'm really hoping that Professor MacLeod will perhaps try to do it this time to see if that will work. But are there some questions that you would like to ask Simeon?
[57:52] Just near the end of your answer, Professor, you spoke on the exercise of the Christian mind as if it were the regular and conscious application of the principle, what would Christ do in such and such a situation?
[58:06] Well, in my short life, it's been my experience that many decisions have to be made and attitudes struck which leave virtually no time for reflection whatsoever.
[58:21] And I've often thought to myself that the only hope of striking the right attitude and making the right decision must be that I become so imbued with the things of God, move so close to God that the right decision and the right attitude becomes a matter of instinct.
[58:41] Now, in your view is that a follow-on book? No, I think it's a very important question which you've answered yourself very effectively, Simeon.
[58:53] And I very much welcome the contribution because it is very important. I think that very often we do in fact have no time to think, we have to react instinctively.
[59:04] And it is important that our instincts themselves be Christian instincts. But to cultivate those is a laborious job, you know, and it can't happen overnight.
[59:16] Maybe the word imbued isn't the best word, but if I can just run the risk of making a medical fool of myself, if we go back to the Petty Institute in Budapest which deals with spastic cerebral palsy children and other forms of retardation at a physical level.
[59:40] The techniques they apply are to manipulate the limbs so that by doing so they stimulate the brain into activity. It's reversion in the process, it's no longer the brain moving the limbs, but the limbs are in fact stimulate in the brain so that it develops new skills.
[59:58] And I think that in the same way if we as Christians in our early days make a deliberate attempt to think Christianly, a time will come when that's instinctive.
[60:10] It's learning to drive a car, when you start off learning to drive a car, it's all very formal and it's very carefully thought out. And you look for this and that and your eyes are in all the wrong places.
[60:22] But it becomes at last an instinct and you become, you fuse with the car. And I do feel that what you have highlighted is the need to cultivate Christian instincts so that my reaction to provocation is instinctively Christ-like.
[60:38] Now I assure you that at the moment, at the current phase of my development, it is not. I am provoked. If I am provoked, I am provoked. But I live in hope that I can move beyond that into a more instinctively meek attitude to such situations.
[60:55] But my concern is that Christians will sit down and look, for example, at a problem like inflation or unemployment.
[61:07] And they will use exactly the same arguments as non-Christians. And I am asking really, is there a different way? Are we thinking Christianly through those various issues?
[61:18] I think John, your hand is about to go up. I think you are. I think you are. In the second half of your lecture this evening under the heading of progressive sanctification, under the heading of renewal, you did mention how important it was for us as Christians to have the name of Christ and not to think of our own rights or other of our own obligations.
[61:43] And I wonder, does this really mean that the Christian should be prepared to be the doormat in every situation?
[62:01] And if so, what about wrong relationships? Say for instance, as husband and wife or as employer and employee? And the third half of your life, do you think this is something that would come progressively?
[62:19] Well, my instinct in this, John, is to say that we should be prepared to be doormats. But we would then, of course, need to qualify that in some directions because we must be creative doormats.
[62:32] In other words, we are to think of the good of those we are related to. And, for example, if we take a different role to the one that you specified, if we are parents, we can't become, in the unqualified sense, doormats to our children.
[62:52] But we can actually be very much living for them in a way that they might feel as perhaps even authoritarian.
[63:04] But there is a room for a selfless exercise of authority. The important point is that it is done for others. Christ made himself nothing, but he is still Lord and head of the church.
[63:20] He did not abdicate so that he deprived the church of his own services. And I think we've got to find a way where we are available to others in a way that's not egotistical.
[63:34] It doesn't assume that we ourselves are extraordinarily gifted or useful, but that at every point the needs of others are more important than my needs. It would also mean in the relationship that you refer to husband and wife, that I would go back to Ephesians 5, where although the husband is ahead of the wife, in Paul's thinking there, the wife is not told that. She is told to love her husband.
[64:01] And the emphasis in both instances falls on the obligation of each partner to the other. And even the headship of the husband, it is not in the remotest degree an egotistical exercise of authority.
[64:18] The head has to nourish and cherish. The headship never means that he thinks that she exists for him. It means that he thinks that he exists for her.
[64:32] Now the converse is that she often exists for him. There is no room for sexist arrogance. It is not because he is superior to her that he exists for her. It is just that he nourishes and cherishes.
[64:44] And I do suggest that it is enormously difficult in our culture, which is essentially classicist in its outlook, which has been modified to major on the virtues of competitiveness and self-reliance and drive and so on.
[65:02] It is very difficult for us to educate our own children and our own church members in the reverse ethic, in the ethic of self-denial, in the ethic of humility.
[65:15] Because we have to ask in practical terms, what place is there for a humble man in sales, in management, in politics?
[65:29] And I'm in my ivory tower. I mean, in the Free Church College one could get off with being humble, that's why I'm so humble. But it's very much more difficult if we go to what you call the real world.
[65:46] Another question? I think there are many questions tonight.
[66:01] I'm glad there are no more in husbands and wives. I hope it's not in husbands and wives, but in my own wife. I love the real good question. Because I've got a sermon on it for Sunday morning, you see.
[66:14] Yes, Helen. I think I'm right in saying that you advised us to pray that God would show us our sins as he sees them. And I remember my team that it was because God was so merciful that he kept us from seeing our sins as he sees them.
[66:33] Well, I can sympathise with the idea, and I did hear it myself fairly often in my own Lewis background, but I suspected because part of my thinking here is that when God shows us our sin, he shows us two things.
[66:48] He shows us the horrendousness of our sin, but he also shows us the sin in the context of his own mercy. And it is, in other words, his view of sin.
[67:00] And that view is never, in my view, detached from his own willingness and ability to save us from it. And that's why, you see, I don't want the psychologist's view of my sin, or the doctor's view of my sin.
[67:16] For example, if I'm an alcoholic, and I get maybe a particular medical view of my sin, I'm told it's incurable.
[67:29] Whereas, if I get God's point of view on it, I'm given some hope. And I do feel that God says to us about sin, and I say in chapter 1, come, let's reason together about it, let's talk about our sin, about your sin, you and me talk about it.
[67:45] And God shows us how high it is, but God always shows us that it is a forgivable entity in our lives. And the beauty of going to God about it is that God does have mercy.
[67:57] I don't think that human beings or expert health workers often have mercy, and they don't hold out much hope. But I think that when God shows us sin, it is always something that is gravely extreme, and yet is not irremediable. And that's why I keep on praying this prayer.
[68:19] Another one? Another one? No?
[68:32] Well, I think we'll leave it there. And after I give my formal thanks, perhaps Sir Reverend Bobby Bray will lead us in prayer, please, to conclude our meeting. But I do want once again to thank Professor MacLeod for his lecture to us.
[68:48] I was tempted to say before we started our questions that I didn't want questions that might hinder us from praising the Lord for all that he taught us tonight. And I didn't want any questions that might hinder us from doing what we heard tonight.
[69:03] And I don't think we had any questions. I obviously didn't say that because that might have stopped questions altogether. But we are thankful for these extra questions and for some who even provided their own answers.
[69:16] And it's good that that's what our fellowship is about, that we all are able to contribute so that we can learn together. And perhaps before we go, we will want to talk, maybe you will want to talk with Professor MacLeod before he goes back to Edinburgh, or even just a little time talking together can perhaps say earth, all that we've heard, just that little bit more, and enable us to go forth and glorify our God in the doing of the sanctification that he is doing in us.
[69:47] But we do thank you all and thank Professor MacLeod. Now we'll stand for prayer. O gracious in the eternal God, our Father in heaven, we give thee our thanks for our gathering here together in Jesus' name.
[70:09] And we pray for thy blessing upon our gathering, thy forgiveness for all of them, thy help and thy strength to grow in grace, and in the knowledge and love of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
[70:29] For dear God, our weaknesses, grant unto us life, great health and mercy, all along the way. Grant, O Lord, that we pray the journaling mercies as we go home this night, and accept our thanks for all of our goodness to us in every way at this time.
[70:53] Hear our prayer, and that he with us now and always we teach thee. For the Lord Jesus' sake. Amen.
[71:03] Battle. And perhaps if we get back to the picture of the wheel, and of the wheel being stopped, and prayer put in in its own section in this revelation of history, perhaps if we get back to that prayer, that picture, it will help us to see just how important prayer is to true Christian living.
[71:49] Because isn't this the way that the temptation comes so often? The wheel is turning, you see. The wheel of history is always turning.
[72:01] We're always on that wheel. And there are so many circumstances, so many responsibilities, so many things that need to be done, that are all on the wheel of history, we feel.
[72:15] And we get the idea that to stop, to pray, to lay everything aside, and only to pray, it just can't be done.
[72:29] It means stopping the wheel, we feel. Because so much just must be done. But surely prayer can be an option, we argue.
[72:42] But the book of Revelation argues quite differently. Yes, if it would need the whole wheel to stop, of course it never will stop.
[72:53] But if it would need the whole wheel of our circumstances to stop, with all the legitimate things that are in them, it must be so, so that we pray.
[73:08] Because it's so important. Most of you are using the daily notes of Scripture, you may need to learn that lesson just a few days ago from the life of Christ in Luke chapter 5.
[73:24] And I want you to notice the interesting juxtaposition of verses 15 and 16 in that chapter of Luke. Verse 15 says this, great multitudes, great multitudes, great multitudes came together to be healed of him, of their infirmities.
[73:48] What an opportunity. What great work could be done for God with these great multitudes. How will Jesus' power to be healed?
[74:00] Great signs and wonders could be done. What does the next verse say? And he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed.
[74:18] Do you get the lesson? Do you see the importance of prayer in God's will, in God's plan, in God's purposes?
[74:30] That's the challenge. Do our lives, does the place of prayer in our lives match up to what God has revealed of the place of prayer in his eternal purposes?
[74:51] We're not going to get very far in the sermon tonight, but no matter. Let's deal with the encouragement. And I suppose we'll have to leave it there. Because we've seen the challenge when we deal just with this phrase, the prayer of all saints.
[75:10] There's a challenge there and hopefully we've received the challenge. And let us be prayerful having received the challenge. Prayerful for grace to respond to the challenge.
[75:27] Maybe we've felt yes. Yes, I agree with what the minister's saying tonight. Yes, there has been some revelation for me here about the importance of the place of prayer.
[75:40] But the sermon will have done nothing really. If this coming week doesn't show that we have really responded in obedience and we are found to employ its proper place in our lives as the saints of God.
[76:13] That's the challenge. But oh, the encouragement. And do let us always remember this. God never challenges us without encouragement.
[76:34] Whatever God commands He promises for the grace to obey. You will never shall be separated.
[76:51] The commands of God are always with the promises of God. They're interlaced throughout Scripture and we mustn't separate them over much.
[77:04] We can't rest on the promises without obeying the commands. And we're not expected to obey the commands without resting on the promises.
[77:19] And you see in this phrase the prayers of all saints and the context in which it is here there's an implied promise. Don't you see it? It's this.
[77:33] God is, you see, drawing back the curtain on heaven. He's drawing back the curtain on what's happening in His near presence as the great wheel of history is moving on.
[77:51] And of course so often we're taken up with the great wheel of history moving on. And we're coming here in the book of Revelation to the darker aspects of that great wheel.
[78:02] Terrible judgments. Terrible happenings that causes great grief and perplexity. And we can become so overwhelmed with these things because they're so immediate.
[78:15] They're happening around about us. We're seeing them every day on our television screens. And they're so near and they're so visible. And they can be so overwhelming.
[78:27] And so God draws back the curtain in this episode and he's talking about the prayers of all saints.
[78:41] And he's saying that because of the incense that's given to them and we leave that off for tonight that what we do see is that the prayers of all the saints they rise up to God and they affect God.
[79:00] And if you read the passage again you'll see that it's only when the bowl of the incense that as the prayers move it as well it's only when that bowl reaches up or at least the smoke from that bowl reaches up to God.
[79:15] It's only then that the movement starts the other way and the bowl is filled with fire and it comes down to the earth again. Now you can meditate on what that means. But all we need to see tonight is that the prayers of all saints have a faint with God.
[79:38] That also is part of God's eternal plan. And he wants his people to know it and to remember it.
[79:50] We'll see it all once we get to heaven but he wants us to know it now. He hasn't taken the veil in the book of Revelation of all that's in heaven.
[80:01] There'll be wonders that we'll never dreamed of. But he wants us to see this now. That every prayer of every saint has effect with God.
[80:21] And it's all worked in to fulfill God's purposes. Now surely you see that as passive wonderful.
[80:36] Isn't that an encouragement to you when you go to prayer tonight? or there'll be a battle when you go to prayer.
[80:47] We've seen that. But you can go strengthened in faith that God will use your prayers.
[81:00] prayer. And more than that he'll use them in his own way. Now the devil seems to be awfully good when we mention that side of things.
[81:16] We use it negatively. Or let's see that we use it positively. I quite often like to quote the scripture that talks about God in his prayers answering us far above what we could even ask or think.
[81:38] He works with our prayers. He doesn't work without our prayers. But we don't need finally to be discouraged with the weakness of our prayers.
[81:53] With the fact that sometimes we pray and we know that we still have such doubts and such fears. Now yes we must seek by God's grace that these doubts and fears would be dealt with.
[82:06] But these doubts and fears when we pray are not to keep us from praying and they're not to keep us from expecting when we pray and they're not to keep us from believing that our prayers will be used by God.
[82:20] and every time we pray it's with the encouragement that we'll be heard in heaven.
[82:35] Let's just give one application it applies to myself sometimes so perhaps it applies to some of you too. No, I just can't preach it would be hypocritical.
[82:54] I'm so backslidden or I've been so lazy for these last few days I just can't pray it would be hypocritical.
[83:11] The spirit that is bound to be in the prayer would be offensive to God and I'll leave it. That thought especially comes to me in the evening when I'm dead tired.
[83:28] We'll leave it till the morning there'll be more strength there. We'll never see the morning but the truth is that if we pray trusting not in our own spiritual condition but trusting in Christ our Saviour who calls us to pray who gives us the example of prayer our prayer will be heard and our prayer will be effective in God's way.
[84:16] Oh don't let us make light through that truth of the wrong spiritual condition. Don't let us think that that spiritual condition doesn't matter but don't let it keep us from prayer because what we have learned tonight for our challenge and for our encouragement is that the prayers of all saints are heard in heaven and they have the effect according to God's eternal purpose.
[84:59] Amen. now let's conclude our worship by singing verses from Psalm 102 Psalm 102 singing from verse 16 and the Jewish Heron gate number 7 God in his glory shall appear when Zion he builds and repairs he shall regard and lend his ear unto the needy's humble prayers.
[85:33] Psalm 102 the second version and the verses 16 to 22 and we stand to sing. verse 16 like act on熊 his gift to remind him Amen.
[86:37] Amen. Amen.
[87:37] Amen. Amen.
[88:09] Amen. Amen. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit remain with you now and always. Amen.
[88:37] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[88:47] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[89:01] Amen.